


Stop Time Itself

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5+1 Things, Drabble Sequence, F/M, MayThe4th Treat, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-09 12:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18638464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: Five times Rey kills Kylo Ren, and one time she doesn't.





	Stop Time Itself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kereia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kereia/gifts).



**1.**

His death hits Rey like a knife to the gut. She’s braced for it – she caused it – but that doesn’t numb the pain as a lifetime’s worth of possibilities evaporate with his final breath. She falls to her knees. Kylo’s body is a shrouded black heap on the ground, and she can’t bear to look any closer and see his lifeless dark eyes staring back at her.

It’s been three years to the day since they saw each other last on Crait. Now she’s never going to see him again.

She really, really didn’t want to have to kill him.

 

**2.**

He fights like nothing Rey has ever seen. Each move she makes, he counters perfectly, as though he knows her intentions before she does.

‘You’ve been training,’ she says, dodging another lethal slash. ‘It won’t save you.’

It’s been three years to the day since they saw each other last on Crait. She, too, has trained hard in that time.

‘We’ve done this exact fight nineteen times now,’ Kylo snarls. ‘I know it won’t save me. Don’t rub it in.’

There's no way out. She has to do it. But as she kills him, a piece of Rey dies too.

 

**3.**

‘I can do this,’ Kylo says, apparently to himself, as he lunges at Rey with his lightsaber drawn. ‘She’s just a girl. A weak, untrained scavenger brat. I can do this.’

It’s been three years to the day since they saw each other last on Crait. The intervening time has clearly broken something inside him.

He fights mindlessly, hacking and slashing and taking risks so extreme that Rey’s not sure whether to feel despair or disgust when he falls. It doesn't feel like triumph. But as she plunges her lightsaber into his chest, she swears he mostly just looks annoyed.

 

**4.**

‘I don’t understand why this keeps happening.’

‘Excuse me?’ Rey spent the whole journey over here girding herself to kill a man and end a war. It’s been three years to the day since they saw each other last on Crait, and Kylo looks ready to cry in her lap.

‘I’ve tried fighting, I’ve tried running, I’ve tried everything. But you won’t stop killing me. Rey, why won’t you stop killing me?’

‘Are you having a psychotic break?’

The answer is yes. Or at least that’s how it seems to Rey, going by his wild eyes when he rushes her.

 

**5.**

Laser fire sets the sky alight as war rages on above them. But in front of Rey, out on the open battlefield, Kylo sits with legs crossed on the ground and refuses to move.

It’s been three years to the day since they saw each other last on Crait. The lines of exhaustion around his eyes suggest it’s been much longer.

‘Are you going to get up and fight me?’ Rey asks, baffled by his apparent indifference to their mortal struggle – and, if she's honest, a little hurt.

‘No point,’ Kylo sighs. ‘Just stab me and get it over with.’

 

**+1**

It’s been three years to the day since they saw each other last on Crait. Now, Kylo kneels before her.

‘I can’t fight anymore. Please, Rey. Help me.'

Her resolve shatters. Rey came here ready to end the war, but she really, really didn’t want to have to kill him. She didn’t expect to have a choice. The truth is, she’d have stopped time itself to escape that killing blow if she could.

She’ll never know now if she’d have had the strength to do it. Her hand trembles as she holds it out. 'I'm here, Ben. I'll help you.'


End file.
